It's always the statistics they don't report that are interesting (en francais)

Quick Facts about the Canadian Firearms Program as of June 30, 2005

Firearms Licences and Registration of Firearms

* Of the 2 million firearms licences issued to individuals under the Firearms Act, there are:

o 1.24 million Possession Only Licences (POLs)
o 735,000 Possession and Acquisition Licences (PALs)
o 5,000 Minors Licences

* 1.65 million individual licence holders have at least one firearm registration certificate.

* There are 4,368 valid business licences. Purposes for a business licence include: retail / wholesale of firearms, manufacturing, auction, display in a museum, and gunsmithing.

* Of the over 7 million firearms currently registered:

o 6.78 million firearms are registered to individuals
o 230,000 firearms are registered to businesses
o 41,700 firearms are registered or recorded to public agencies & museums

So my question to the above is - how many of the 2 million who have firearms licences moved last year? How many weapons do they have, where did they move to and has the database been updated yet?

Seems like a simple question, but it takes on a whole new meaning when you look at the following:

* Law enforcement officers have queried the Canadian Firearms Registry On-line over 4.1 million times since it was launched on December 1, 1998. Currently, an average of more than 3,000 queries are made daily.

Note: The Canadian Firearms Registry Online service provides police officers access to firearms licence and registration information in the Canadian Firearms Information System through the Canadian Police Information Centre. This information helps the police to intervene and respond to calls effectively in order to prevent injury and crime, assists in the investigation of firearm-related crimes, and helps the police to identify and return stolen and lost firearms to their rightful owners.

That leads to my next question, how many of the 3000 queries per day are deemed to be accurate? Do they measure accuracy?

Let me put it another way. Have YOU moved lately? Even though you don't currently own a weapon, how do you know that the previous occupant of your household didn't?

Let's take this one step further. There is a loud arguement emanating from your house tomorrow and your cautious neighbour calls the police with a possible domestic violence complaint or even strange noises and a possible break and enter in progress.

Now do you think it would be worthwhile to know if the person who lived there before you owned weapons?

Statistics don't always tell the full story. As Canadians, it certainly important that we continue asking these sorts of questions.